By Any Other Name
by netrat
Summary: FINISHED. Four bored Gryffindors spend their afternoon giving each other nicknames. Who in their right minds would call themselves Wormtail, anyway?


_Uh, okay ... I guess I'll have to edit out the part in my bio saying that I don't write fanfic. I don't normally, honestly! Only I was thinking about the meaning of names in the Potterverse, and whether you could choose your animagus form or just turned into whatever you really were,  and then this little vignette wrote itself. _

_Thanks to Mel, delilahmedea (who liked my little anagram! yes!), telegramsam, and Asrai for reviewing "The Interviews"! I don't think I'll continue that one anytime soon, though. I'm lacking ideas at the moment. Although I'm very curious about who's going to be the DADA teacher next year – another old friend of Dumbledore's, or maybe even Snape? _

_Four bored Gryffindors spend their afternoon giving each other nicknames. Who in their right minds would call themselves Wormtail, anyway?_

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Marauders, Lily, Snape (no matter how much I'd wish to), or McGonagall. She does. If you have to ask who "she" is, go read the books instead. – I don't own Enterprise and Batman either. If I did, Batman's sidekick would have a cooler name, and Wesley Crusher would not exist.

**By any other name******

"We should give ourselves nicknames", James said.

"Okay, Jimmy-Boy." Sirius looked up from his copy of Quidditch Girls (he said he got it for the match results only, not that anybody believed him) and added in a very fake McCoy accent: "He's dead, Jim."

"Who's dead?" Remus, who had been staring into the fire, looking for all the world like a very bored prefect waiting for his girlfriend to finish whatever she was doing at McGonagall's office, so that they could go into the boys' dormitory and ... study charms ... – anyway, Remus looked at Sirius with as much confusion as James felt.

Sirius sighed. "That's what that McCoy guy is always saying, on that Enterprise show. Remember? Where all the girls in very short skirts pretend to fly around in space", he added, judging correctly that they'd remember that part, if nothing else. However, neither Remus nor James looked convinced.

"So, who's dead, then?" James asked.

Sirius rolled his eyes, apparently trying to pass himself off as a third-rate actor. "No-one. I just wanted to make the point that this McCoy guy, who is a doctor, which is why he declares people dead, calls the captain of the ship Jim. Since James started babbling about nicknames. All clear now?"

Remus shrugged his shoulders and went back to dreaming about what charms he and Lily could study this evening. The Tickling charm, maybe – now there was a good one ...

"Anyway, we should have nicknames", James insisted. „But not Jim. And if you call me Jimmy-Boy once more, I'll hex you."

"What for?" asked Peter, whom they'd all believed to be sleeping, curled up as he was on the couch near the window.

"What he'd want to hex me for? That's what I'd like to know, too." Sirius grinned and audibly added: "Jimmy-Boy."

"I mean, what would we want nicknames for?" Peter insisted, ignoring him.

James shrugged his shoulders. "Well, for one thing, we could talk about You-Know-What without people overhearing us. I for one want something to call myself when I'm transfigured. You ever heard of a stag called James?"

"You ever heard of a stag called anything?" Sirius countered, but this time it was James who ignored him. They were all good at it. The first two things you learned when you shared the dorm with Sirius were when to ignore him, and how to convincingly say But I really have no idea who could have done that! to a teacher.

"Moony", said Remus, who really hadn't appeared to listen. Then again, he rarely did. It had taken McGonagall almost two years to accept the fact that when Remus was looking bored and sleepy in her class, he was really paying rapt attention. He was even taking notes in Professor Binns' class, though Binns wouldn't notice if half his students dropped dead during an endless litany on the goblin wars! Comprehensible notes, mind you, not the illegible scrawlings of a half-asleep boy.

"Moony?"

Remus shrugged his shoulders. "You wanted nicknames. It certainly refers to me, and no-one else will know whom you're talking about. Besides, Sirius calls me that already."

"Only to annoy you", Sirius countered, beaming as if annoying one's friends was some sort of neat skill. Well, if it was, he'd certainly honed it to perfection, James thought. And he was really good at annoying their enemies, too. Even the serpents who were so adept at keeping their cool. Even Snape, the slimiest of all.

"Well, it doesn't annoy me, but you can keep it up. What about the three of you?" Remus seemed to finally have given up the hope of a quick studying session before dinner.

"So you mean that I should have a nickname referring to a big black dog? Other than, you know, Sirius Black?"

"Well, you could always be Snuffles, or Rex, or – what's that stupid dog on Wizard Kids called? Mister Paddy?"

Sirius looked affronted while James and Peter burst into laughter, and Remus smiled.

"I will be Mister Paddy if you will be Mister Horny", Sirius finally said with a wicked gleam in his eyes. This time, James was the only one not to laugh.

"Paddy Padfoot and Mister Moony", Peter started singing. "And – uh – Harry Horny ..."

To everyone's surprise, Sirius stopped laughing. "Actually, Padfoot doesn't sound too bad. But if any of you call me Mister Paddy, I'll –"

"Hex us?"

"Feed us Polyjuice and turn us all into Snapes?"

"Transfigure my books into ones with titles like The Boy Who Cried Wolf again?"

Sirius was almost speechless, but managed to threaten to do all three – "AND tell Snape that you'd like to be called Harry Horny from now on!"

"So, have you finally found yourself a nickname?" Sirius asked, after the laughter had died down. "After all, it was your idea."

James hesitated. "Prongs", he said and was pleasantly surprised when no-one laughed. It had a nice ring to it. Moony, Padfoot, Prongs, and ...

Peter sighed. "You know, there's really no way you can make being a rat sound endearing."

"Come on, Peter." None of them had completely understood how the transfiguration process worked – James would go so far as to say that none of them understood it now. He and Sirius had planned to become big, strong animals, able to keep a werewolf at bay – and now they were a dog and a stag. Peter had tried to become something small, something that could reach the knot in the willow. He didn't want to tell what he'd had in mind. A squirrel, maybe. Peter liked squirrels and always fed them when he saw one. (He never seemed to go anywhere without some crumbs and nuts in his pocket.) A snake – definitely not, who'd want to be the Slytherin mascot? A cat – although that might not have turned out pretty, with Sirius being a dog. The only thing James knew for sure was that Peter had not planned on becoming a rat. He had accused Sirius of having him given the wrong pointers for weeks afterwards. Although it kind of fit his personality, small and nervous as he was ... Not that James would ever voice that thought.

"Remus is right, Peter", he said instead. "There's nothing wrong with rats. Rats are very bright, and many people like them."

Peter snorted.

"It's true", James insisted. "In the Chinese horoscope, they have the Year of the Rat." 

Sirius seemed busy searching the huge collection of comic magazines he'd memorized. "And there is this superhero, who dresses all in black, his name is Rat-Man or something –"

"Rat-Man. That's pathetic", Peter said, and although James shook his head, he was inclined to agree.

"We still could find you a really cool name", Sirius insisted. "Like – King Rat or something."

"Wormtail", Remus said suddenly. When Peter looked up at him, he grinned. "It's secret, well, and it sounds both pathetic and cool. Kind of like a werewolf named Moony." Remus rarely called himself a werewolf, and James suspected that he only did so now to make Peter feel better. It seemed to work. You could read it on Peter's face: Being a rat was, after all, still better than turning into a monster every full moon.

"Moony, Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail", James repeated. "Sounds neat."

"We could think of a battle cry, once we're at it." Sirius grinned. "Something to shout at the Slytherins."

"I solemly swear that I am up to no good."

"That's just for the map. You want to cry that in the corridor, Moony?"

"I don't want to cry anything in the corridor. I'm a prefect."

"One for all, all for one", James said lamely.

"Marauders United", Peter suggested.

"Is the secret society meeting again?" Lily asked, noiselessly closing the door behind her and steering towards Remus. Everyone tried to look unconspicious, except for Remus, who didn't even have to try.

"No, Sirius was just entertaining us with his strange sense of muggle humour", James said. You could always count on Sirius for a distraction.

"He refuses to let me call him Jimmy-Boy. I don't see why. And he's horny." 

James whipped out his wand, but so did Sirius. They shouted their spells at exactly the same time.

"Should I go and get Madam Pomfrey?", Lily offered after a while, being the first to stop laughing. She was immediately silenced by four "no!"s being shouted simultaneously.

"I'm sure it will wear off before dinner", muttered Sirius, looking at the fluffy black cushions that had once been his feet. It surprised him that he was still standing. "You're really getting the hang of partial transfiguration."

"You're getting the hang of charms, too", James said, raising a hand to feel the antlers he was sprouting from his forehead.

"You're the prefect", said Lily. "Shouldn't you do something?"

Remus got up and stood next to her. "Five points from each of you for duelling in the common room. Five points to James for finally getting the hang of transfiguration, five points to Sirius for getting the hang of charms. If you'll excuse us now." Still smiling, he took Lily's hand and practically marched her off to the boys' dormitory.

"You know", Peter said, after Remus and Lily left. "I've decided that maybe being a rat isn't that bad." Ignoring his friends' sour – and rather frightened – expressions, he went to the door and paused. "Shall I tell the whole school, or just Snape?" With that, he edged out of the room, grinning broadly. After all, Padfoot and Prongs weren't likely to follow and hex him.

Love it? Hate it? Please R&R!


End file.
